


Buddah Provides

by functiondys



Category: In the Loop (2009) & The Thick of It, The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Blasphemy, Fluff, Graphic, M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-01-05 00:23:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12179373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/functiondys/pseuds/functiondys
Summary: The memory alone is enough to make him want to fall on his knees and fucking worship - God above or Malcolm's cock it doesn't fucking matter. Jamie MacDonald has faith, a hard-on and lover to woo. He can't fail.





	1. Chapter 1

See, Jamie's no stupid.

Despite what fuckers have told him most of his life, he's actually got a pretty decent brain in his head. S'no like Malc's or anything, cause that's just a whole different thing.

It's like it got born inside out or all joined up weird and way, way too wired. Like it's got it's own built-in feed of caffeine, rage and adrenaline. There's just no bloody off switch.

At least not one Malc's found any how but Jamie? Jamie knows exactly how to short circuit that bastarding big brain because Jamie can fucking fuck anything. Jamie's brain might be decent but his cock is fan-fucking-tastic. Y'see, this - this - is how Jamie knows he and Malcolm are meant to fucking be. Jamie's cock was created to be cradled between Malcolm's lips, there's no other fucking explanation for the sheer radiant fucking glory of that sight. 

The memory alone is enough to make him want to fall on his knees and fucking worship - God above or Malcolm's cock it doesn't fucking matter. Supplicant and sucking and Jesus Christ he's hard already. 

Hand in his boxers and he's no fucking waiting, he's wanking like he means it. Shirt pulled up, tie falling to the side, trousers framing his junk. Work wear and his swollen cock and the thought of fucking Malcolm, fucking night after night. Not just here and there but the rest of their fucking lives.

And it's that - fucking that - that makes him brink. The thought of Malcolm as a fixture, in his bed, in his house, in his life. It's not fucking tits or arses or bloody violence anymore it's fucking permanency that gets him going? Jesus Fucking Christ could he be anymore fucking middle aged.

Jamie shuts his eyes and directs his fucking fantasy this time cause a boring old cunt he might be now but he's some ego left to save. 

So, fucking Malcolm over the PM's fucking Despatch Box it is. It gives the bloated wank stains in the Cabinet a nice view of his arse and it might not make it to the six o' clock news but it'll sure as hell give BBC Parliament a fucking ratings peak.

Jamie comes with a grin that bares every single fucking tooth to the ceiling.

Malcy might take a bit of convincing mind, but all Jamie really needs is the opportunity to prove it. Getting that though, well, that man was a stubborn shite and no mistake, so he'd have to be smart about it, right. Come up with some kind of plan. 

Unfortunately that was unusually more Malc's area. 

Jamie frowns but decides that this was meant to be, he'd find a fucking way. The path of the righteous man wasn't always easy but he who shows perseverance in the face of the overwhelming was fucking blessed. God intended Jamie's cock for Malcolm's arse. If he tries he will find a way, faith will out and Buddah will fucking provide but more importantly, he decides as he pats at the bedside table in search of his phone, God helps he who helps himself.

Malc's name is first on his contact list.

"Do you have any fucking idea what time it is?"

Oh he knew it. God was on his side, he knew it, he knew it. He knew it! Blessed Mary Mother of God, thank you.

"Time you fucked me," he smirks at the ceiling.

"Are you fucking drunk?"

Jamie wrinkles his nose and thinks about it. It would explain why everything made quite so much fucking sense right now. The world was never quite as clear when he was sober as when he was pissed. Jamie decided that he probably is and he should be far more often.

"Like a Nun in a fucking whorehouse pal," he grins, his breath still evening out.

"Are you - are you fucking wanking?'"

"I'm no fuckin' wankin'," he replies, snuggling down into the pillow. It was kinda nice hearing Malc's voice with all the nice natural chemicals floating about his blood stream. Chemicals are nice, Jamie decides. 

"I'm post-fucking-coital," he says then tilts his head as another thought appeared. "Here you're the smart cunt, is it still post-coital if you're wanking instead of fucking?"

Malcolm swears unintelligibly and splutters. Jamie decides to help him out.

"Course y'could sort the whole issue if y'just came round for a good shag. That'd fix it, ay, wouldnae need the fucking answer then ay."

See, there. Reasonable fucking solution. That whole logic shite - right up Malcolm's alley. Jamie stiffles a snigger, he will not fucking laugh at that now. He is a fucking grown-up and he is fucking courting here.

"You listen to me you wee -"

"I," he interrupts loudly, pointing a finger at the opposite wall. "Will fucking listen all you want pal. Just shove your fingers up your arse for us while we do it ae?"

Oh nice, he is a fucking Lothario tonight boys. Jamie grins and absently twirls a few bits of pubic hair around in circles. Malc's gone pretty grey now, Jamie wonders if his pubes've gone grey too. 

"Fuck off," comes the response.

Is that even a thing? Grey pubes. He mentally flicks through his internal catalogue of porn - not an insubstantial collection by any manner of means - and comes up just as fucking puzzled. That pisses him off no end 'cause details are important and it was Malcolm that fucking taught him the importance of fucking details. Well that fucking settles it, he needs Malc the fuck over here to settle the issue right the fuck now.

"Come and fucking do it for me, ae?" Jamie says and decides to change tone, that little bit of pleading in his voice. Let Malc remember he's in fucking charge, controlling cunt always liked that. "S'been fucking ages since we fucked Malc."

There was silence from the other end of the line and fuck knows how the prick managed to make silence dramatic but he did. The whiplash mood change seems to have bought him some leeway so he uses it mercilessly.

"Tired of fucking cunts and wanking to the memory of my cock in your arse," he pouts. "I'll fucking blow you. Christ, I'd have you fuck my face for a fucking reach round, y'mad bastard."

Malcolm's still silent but Jamie can hear him breathing. Thank fuck that letting his mouth run away with him is one of Jamie's better talents.

"I fucking miss it, I fucking miss you. There's no other fucker I'd have before you, y'know that? The fucking things you do, fucking emaciated, vitriolic, mastermind fucking sex god."

Aye, massage the fucking ego McDonald, that's the way, fucking tell him what he is.

"You're a fucking bastard Malcolm Tucker!"

Jamie's brain frowns internally for a moment, not quite sure where his mouth is going with this but they've operated independently for long enough that he let's it go.

" Fucking fuck a man like that then fucking take it away. Was this what you were fucking going for ae? Drive me fucking mad till I fucking lose it and start fucking begging."

"Oh you lost your mind long before my cock had anything to do with you, y'wee psycho," says the low, silky, vasodilating prick-tease of a voice fucking sliding round his body like a fucking boa constrictor.

"Oh aye? Come and fucking prove it."

"That doesn't even make sense y'drunk twat."

"It'll make even less sense with my cock up you're arse but you'll fucking like it."

"How much have you fucking had to drink?"

"Come over and find out."

"For your whisky dick? I think fucking not."

Fucking win.

"Arse'll be as good," he pointed out.

"You really are a mad wee fucker aren't you?"

"Aye," he said. "Must be. That fucking eager to bend over for you."

"Go the fuck to sleep before I send someone over there to hack off your balls and give them to your ex to wear as earrings."

Jamie grins a huge, besotted grin.

"And drink some fucking water because I intend to be over there at the crack of fucking dawn and I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to fuck you or fuck you up but I doubt a headache'll make either better for you."

"I fucking love you," he declares.

"Cunt," Malcolm mutters and a dial tone buzzes in Jamie's ear.

"Aw yes, fuckin' Romeo!"


	2. Chapter 2

"Christ you're a withered old fuck."

Malcolm looks down at himself.

Scrawny and middle aged. Nothing anywhere is as smooth or flat or taut as it aught to be. His skin is pale - and not just in the sun starved way of his people - no matter how many oranges he eats his blood still lacks the iron it needs to properly tint his skin with a decent bit of colour.

"Are you fucking meant to be like that?" Jamie had asked one winter as Malcolm had pulled another jumper on, gnawing at blue lips. "Sure there's no inbred upper-class cunts fucked their way into your gene pool?"

"Fuck off."

At least he'd offered to warm them both up for a time. Make use of those stupid over grown muscles, that ridiculous excess of energy.

You see, Jamie on the other hand exercises. Fucking voluntarily. A perversion that's useful in retrospect. Malcolm endured, once and only once, a Jamie unable to burn off energy. He's not certain he'd survive it a second time.

He's entirely certain the nurses would ensure Jamie didn't.

The upshot is that Jamie, on the whole, has his flat bits and taut bits and fucking unnatural bulging bits where society expects them to be. Not that Malcolm doesn't enjoy the results in some respects and he's not fucking insecure enough to be bothered by it, it's just, y'know...

"Fucking, useless, wrinkly -" he prods and pinches at his chest.

Ultimately Malcolm is saved by the fact that Jamie - in his natural enthusiasm for all things carnal - doesn't normally notice the disparity. He's all teeth, curses and tongues. Grasping hands and desperate thrusts and a mind drowned deep in sensation. 

So there's no complaints and no admirations, no attention paid to this part or that the way another lover might. Malcolm imagines no complex surgeon's chart of parts exists in Jamie's head, not even a bloody kids one. No, his body exists in Jamie's head as a single entity: Malcolm. 

Or possibly on a particularly discerning day: Malcolm and Malcolm's cock. 

Jamie's world, Malcolm thinks is not a complex one. His brilliant, passionate, body-blind lover. And he must be, cause Jamie - as far as Malcolm can tell - has no particular type. His type as it exists amounts to sexually receptive and uncomplicated. Which is why Malcolm is still somewhat baffled that Jamie has decided on him since he's never been the latter and only sporadically the former.

Despite that, here he is. 14 stone of space-filching, Motherwellian dead weight, drooling on Malcolm's sheets cause even in sleep he finds a way to be a source of never ending frustration.

It terrifies him how much Jamie means to him, the massive fucking gouge that would be left in his life without him.

He wants to reach out and touch but the cold spidery appendages will be cold. To Malcolm they are chill, to Jamie they will scald like ice. 

Instead he drapes the duvet back over him, certain that it'd be kicked away again soon enough but for now it soothes Malcolm to see that he's not left Jamie without. Not that he needs it. 

Jamie is his own furnace, with no fury to burn off at night it has little to do but keep him warm. Malcolm, hollow wretch that he is needs duvets and blankets and some nights, socks and a lovers presence. 

Jamie shuffles under the duvet.

"Shh, now, daft cunt. To sleep with you ae? You'll be a nightmare in the morning if you're no well rested. A fucking nightmare for the wrong people that is."

Jamie's brow twitches. He grumbles unhappily.   
"And aye you're damn right I mean me. Stop talking back, you know I'm right. I'm always fucking right."

Malcolm wonders what battles Jamie's fighting in his sleep, if they're echoes of those conducted under the sun or if that's when he fights less corporeal foes. Malcolm's dreams are empty, sleep nothing but a static. In his sleep he taunts no demons, battles no angels, questions no god. 

Jamie grumbles something pissed off and unintelligible.

"That's my lad. You fucking tell 'em," Malcolm whispers. Loud enough to be heard but not enough to rouse.

Jamie frowns into his pillow and gives a determined guttural harrumph, followed by what sounds to Malcolm a bit like:

"Rhn mhm no. No ih the fucking flamingos."

"Fuck aye," Malcolm agrees with a grin. "You tell those feathery tye-dyed hippie fucks what's what."

Jamie smiles in his sleep and the frown dissipates. Malcolm wants to reach out and touch, trace fingers affectionately along the stubble on his jaw. 

"Mad cunt," Malcolm mutters affectionately.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jamie has a nice morning and other people don't.

Malc's awake when Jamie fumbles back to consciousness. 

Of course he is, fucking weirdo. There's something sympathetic to the rumours that Malcolm never sleeps. A one-time lover or a now and then partner might never know that he did, even if they were lucky enough to fall asleep at his side. Asleep before him and awake after. They might never know.

Jamie likes that. He likes everything that's his and no one elses. Every bit of Malcolm that is Jamie's is his through determination, through demand and desire and sheer fucking refusal to give up or piss off or falter – even for a fucking second. That is what makes him worthy of the big, brainy bastard that rules the halls of the rich and privileged with a snarl on his lips and a smirk in his eyes.

God Jamie loved the bastard. 

“Whar you wayfir,” he slurs.

Malcolm glances down at him and lifts an eyebrow more eloquent than Jamie's entire form right now. Malcolm and his stupid big smart-brain have had more time to wake up, piling advantage on advantage.

“Hn timesit?”

Sluggishly, painfully he twists his neck and squints at the fuzzy, stinging red and black blur on the bedside table. When it refuses to coalesce into something legible he squints harder, tilting his head with an instinctive snarl that'd have minions fleeing if they knew what was good for him. The blinking beepy box of doom continues to be a stubborn little sod.

Jamie reaches out, powered now by annoyance enough to overcome the desire just to shove his head back into the pillows. He yanks it forward, just to have the red disappear as it comes into focus. The power cable flops forlornly against the drawers.

“Ughff,” Jamie sums up eloquently and hurls the offending object across the room absently, dropping his head back in the pillow where it fucking belongs.

Malcolm snorts.

Jamie decides it's less effort to pretend he didn't hear it.

“You need to go to the opticians.”

“Fffof.”

“What, you like the world looking permanently drunk hazed do you? Knowing you, you probably do. Sure as hell make looking at the ugly fucks in the cabinet easier.”

Jamie has a very clever quip about looking at Malcolm's arse and maybe something to do with pensions legislations but he elects not to share it. It'd be significantly better than Malcolm's and the arse doesn't deserve to hear it after that nasty little jab about... whatever it was that he'd just said that pissed him off.

Jamie snorts and shifts to his face isn't straight down into the pillow, which as comfy as it is, tends to be smothering after a little while.

“For all the Nats are a bunch of tartan shortbread shagging hippies, got to respect they've kept that free.”

“Wha?”

“Eye tests. Prescriptions. Are you even fucking awake right now?”

Jamie tried following the conversation back but all he could get was something about pink storks but that couldn't be right.

“Shd jus invade the fuers.”

“Ay?”

“Should just fucking invade,” he snaps, irritated by Malcolm's insistence on being obtuse.

“Scotland?”

“England you daft prick.”

“You going all ScotNat on me? Maybe it's not the eye doctor I need to send you to.”

Jamie flops onto his back.

“We'd be generous fucking overlords. I mean who'd give a shit anyway? Cunts have invaded half the world anyway, probably be happy to see them get a turn.”

Malcolm snorted. “I've enough of a headache dealing with it as it is.”

“Could be easier. Stage a coup.”

“The English, as a whole, tend to prefer slimy gits, incompetent fuckwits and actual permed demons from the depths of hell to a Scot ruling over them.”

“Now who sounds like a ScotNat.”

“Fucking stupid idea.”

“Fucking tempting though.”

“Are you fucking mental?”

“Aye,” he said easily, scratching at his belly. “It'll be a fucking disaster but it'd be our fucking disaster.”

Malcolm blinked. That stunned expression so rarely on his face, horror at his own thoughts and stunned that Jamie's lunacy was starting to make sense. Jamie grinned, broad and shark-like. Malcolm physically shook the stupor away. 

“Go shower you psychotic, regicidal, totalitarian tartan-tat tosser.”

Jamie rolls over onto his stomach resting on his arms and smirks. “It's the fucking romantic moments like these that I live for, snookums.”

“Shove off.”

“I love you too, my sweet wee sugary fuck nuts.”

Jamie presses a loud, dramatic kiss against his cheek.

“Fuck off,” Malcolm yelled, not quite able to keep the laugh out of his voice.

The gentle morning argument giving him a little energy boost Jamie rolls quickly away and leaps out of the bed. He knows Malcolm's watching him, probably making the best of the one benefit that loosing the continuing battle over Jamie wearing something to bed affords him. A nice prime view of his quite frankly fucking perfect arse as he heads for the ensuite.

“Psycho,” he hears Malcolm mutter softly. 

Jamie waits until he's out of view before the tilts his head up and howls; voice footie-loud, accent-proud and choirboy clear, “For aw' that and aw'aw that!”

The responding burst is manic.

“We are no going Scot Nat you mad cunt!”

Jamie bursts into laughter, hearty, loud and childish. The fact that Malc suddenly sounds like he'd swallowed a shite Sean Connery impersonator makes it all the more beautiful.

He's still grinning as he turns on the shower and decides to just run with it and keep enjoying himself and winds up lathering his hair to a ballsy loud rendition of Red, Red Robin that makes the philistines next door start pounding on the walls.

Jamie just grins all the wider. He can fucking feel Malcolm rolling his eyes from the bedroom. 

God life could be fucking good some times. Fuck what any of the cunts who'd thrown shit at him his whole life ever said. Jamie had done damn good. No fucker as stupid or fucking sinful as he was supposed to be could have a life this blessed. He tilted back his head and opened his mouth letting the warm water run all over him. It felt like sanctification, cleansing.

“Non illic resideat spiritus pestilens, non aura corrumpens,” he grinned. “Allahu Akbar big man.”

The door bell rang, followed by angry pounding and Malcolm's angry vocal retort.

Jamie grinned and ducked his head back under the water with a giggle. “Allahu fucking Akbar.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jamie and Malcolm have a pleasant Sunday morning.

Jamie jolted awake, damp from sweat and smelling like booze and old t-shirts. It took a few moments to orientate himself before he could reign his heart rate in.

“D'I even want to know?”

Malcolm's voice was perfectly steady, the cunt.

“Fuckin' nightmare,” Jamie spat.

“Aye? Nicholson in a sundress again?”

“Naw. Fuckin penguins riding on these armoured polar bears after me, kept tryin' to find y'but ah couldn't. Fucking snowstorm. Was afraid you'd left me there.”

Malcolm paused, folding a corner of the paper over so he could look at Jamie better. The thick framed glasses and the untidy hair made him look like a fucking geography teacher, minus the hitting stick.

Fuck geography teachers.

“That's daft, polar bears and penguins don't even live in the same place.”

“That's your fucking comment?”

“You were muttering about that last night as well.”

“I was?”

“Aye, speaking of who the fuck is Frankie?”

“Who?”

“That's what I'm asking.”

“Ah've no fuckin idea.” He rubbed the heel of his hand against his eyeball, causing splotches of colour in the dark. “What fuckin time's it?”

“Time you made breakfast.”

“Awch.”

“Your turn and can you manage no t'incinerate the fucking bacon this time?”

Jamie whined pathetically and flung himself facefirst back into the pillows.

“Out,” Malcolm glowered. Jamie grunted and then bloody freezing weird nobbly fucking toes were beating a tattoo on his ribs. Malcolm should not have the dexterity to the be doing that, the scrawny -

“ - alright! Alright alright alright. I'm up y'bloody slave driver.”

“Slaves got shit done. Y'ever seen the fucking pyramids? Those fuckers fucking worked. If we'd left it up to you it'd be a pile of bloody rocks.”

“It is a pile of bloody rocks.”

“Aye and that reminds me y'uncultured wee toe rag, ketchup so much as touches that roll and I'll shove the bottles up your arse sideways. Brown fucking sauce.”

“Oh aye, I'll put you some brown fucking sauce on it, just you wait till I've ma first coffee.”

Malcolm had already gone back to his paper.

“Shower first.”

Jamie worked on autopilot while various parts of his brain slowly booted up, ran system checks and glitched it's way into reluctant life. This morning it was tracked by the progression of smells from _wtf is that_ to _bloody flowery shower shite_ to _mmm bacon_. The pad of slippers on lino announced that the emaciated creature next door had finally left it's cyrpt to lurch blindly in search of sustenance.

“Anything happening in the world?” Jamie asked.

Malcolm's arms wrapped around his waist from behind, his head at Jamie's shoulder. Jamie wasn't all that chuffed with the height difference between them – never had a problem with his own height, Malcolm's just a lanky sod – but he had to admitt to himself, he did like the rare moments of this.

Not that he'd fucking admit it to anyone else.

“Rich getting richer, poor get poorer, cunts get cuntier.”

“Life as usual then,” he said flipping over a piece of bacon.

“Mmh,” Malcolm rumbled against him. No intent in words or actions, just holding him lightly because he wanted to. Just resting his head to Jamie's neck and his hands on the waistline of his pyjamas because he could.

It was probably a strange thing to feel proud of but proud of it he fucking was, he'd done this. Jamie Fucking McDonald had got the Dark Lord of Profane Fucking Vengeance to volunfuckingtarily seek out comforting physical contact with the exclusion of outside influnces. There were no bombs going off in tube stations, no landslide victories, no squirming wee pink set of lungs screaming their way into the world. No piece of their hearts being lowered to the ground in a caskett.

Just this. Just them. Just Sunday papers and percolating coffee, just bacon in butter and Malcolm's arms around him cause why the fuck not. Malcolm was so quiet Jamie wondered if he'd fallen asleep, looked it up once, does happen. Called microsleeps, common enough especially if you've insomnia and with the Emperor of Shitty Sleep Patterns nosing in at his neck it wasn't exactly unlikely.

Not that Malc ever noticed, Jamie kinda liked that. A secret he knew about Malcolm that Malc himself didn't. Aye, that was nice. It was also the fact he purposefully sabotaged the cunt's last attempt to renew his driving license. No having Mr Who Needs Fucking REM Cycles behind one and a half tonnes worth of finely crafted metal. He does have a conscience thank you very much.

That car's a work of fucking art and Jamie'll do his civic to duty to protect it from sleep-deprived cunts. Even if said sleep-deprived cunt is probably the legally owner.

Especially if said cunt turns out to not be.

“What'd I say about the bacon?”

“Bacon? Thought you wanted charcoal in ketchup.”

A set of blunt crooked teeth pressed against his neck in a quick squeeze, pressing more against than into, wouldn't so much as leave a mark let alone actually nip.

“Alright, fine. There,” he shovelled half the bacon onto a plate by the cooker and scowled at the pan as Malcolm and all the nice Malcolm bits that had been touching him went away.

“Christ,” Malcolm said, looking at the melted butter pooling under the curling medalions. “You trying to give me an early coronary?”

“Aye, that's why you look like a fucking plague victim.”

Malcolm snorted. “Don't have to be a fat bastard to clog your arteries up with shite.”

“Oh aye? Cause the NHS is struggling to cope with all the scrawny fuckers with heart attacks, strokes and diabeties. The UKs great ideal bodyweight epidemic. Dunno what you're even worrying for you're Weegie tennanament scum, you've probably past your life expectancy anyway Gorbals boy.”

“You just remember that when I'm haunting your sorry arse from beyond the grave y'cunt.”

“Now you're just being petulant, I've a fantastic arse.”

Jamie assembled his own breakfast plate with a smirk, he caught Malcolm's eyes flicking down to his bum.

"Oh ffiss off," Malcolm said through a mouthful of bacon.

Jamie grinned.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Malcolm follows his withered little heart and Jamie follows Malcolm (maybe).

Jamie, despite everything, is still an idealist.

 

No naivety, no blindness just a sheer fucking refusal to become the cynic that everyone else, Malcolm included, has become. By all rights and laws of the universe Jamie - as he is - shouldn't exist.

 

Yet there he is. Gob open, drooling face down into his sheets, pillow fuck knows where, and splayed out like a human fucking starfish. Obnoxious little bastard.

 

Worse still, obnoxious little bastard that Malcolm had fallen head over fucking heels for. A man that he'd kill for, that he'd die for, that he'd sit on one of his evenings off and watch shitty horror films for.

 

This was the man he had fallen for. A man whose response to anything not being the way he wants it is to try and fix it with the judicious and skilled application of excessive violence.

 

No careful consideration of consequences, no Machiavellian scheming. No, no. Malcolm had fallen for the man whose problem solving skills were as follows:

 

Thing is not as thing should be.

Smash thing.

Repeat as necessary.

 

Normally he'd be immensely put off by this but Jamie, daft sod that he is, doesn't go for soft targets anymore than Malcolm does. Oh no. It doesn't fucking matter how much bigger or more powerful said thing is. Jamie is the fucking lunatic from legend, the single man that stands bollock naked and covered in woad against an advancing army and yells:

 

"Come the fuck on then!"

 

He lives by the maxim that you do the right fucking thing and God'll dole out the consequences.

 

Malcolm once, drunk and argumentative, asked Jamie if it had ever occurred to him that his god was a total cunt. The wee psycho had grinned like Malcolm had just said something magnificent.

 

"Aye, but a cunt for a good cause ae," he beamed. "Like us."

 

Malcolm didn't like his own words parroted back at him for a purpose that wasn't his own. Especially not by some wee catholic paedo in training.

 

"Like I couldn't a fucking guessed. Any imaginary friend of yours was gonna be a cunt anyhow."

 

Jamie smiled, besotted.

 

Malcolm went to bed confused and frustrated that not only did he seem to have lost but he had no fucking idea how he had lost. In the morning he'd woken, frustrated still, and decided to do the single stupidest thing he had ever done in his life.

 

“Fuck!” screamed Jamie.

 

Malcolm tossed the empty bucket on the bed and tried not to smirk at the look on Jamie's face. It was a lovely change from the content little smile he'd had a moment ago.

 

Jamie looked down at his soaked t-shirt, flung his wet hair out of his eyes and glaring at Malcolm, addressed the situation with a little more clarity.

 

“The fucking fuck you fucking fucking fuck!”

 

This was a mistake.

 

“Get up.”

 

This was definitely a mistake.

 

“The fuck?”

 

“You want to be a cunt for a good cause? Get the fuck up. I'm not going to ask you again, there's a train out of Central in an hour. Be on it or fucking don't.”

 

With that he'd swept out, slammed the door behind him and hurried down the sweep of the shallow concrete steps like he hadn't just torn his ribcage open for the world to see.

 

It would occur to him, sitting drinking shitty coffee on a metal bench with too many fag ends stubbed out on the arms to be anything other than a sit-in ash tray – that maybe, maybe, he could have put it a little clearer.

 

Only, if he was being honest with himself – usually the only person he was unfailingly honest to (sorry Ma) – he didn't know what _it_ fucking was to put it any clearer.

 

But it wouldn't matter, would it. Forty minutes for the fucker to not show up and then he'd have hours sitting with his knees up his nose to decide what he'd meant by it all.

 

Thirty-nine minutes.

 

At least that's what he'd thought back then. After all, it's not exactly unreasonable to think you'd have slightly more of a clue about something after twenty fucking years of it.

 

“Malkie,” Jamie's head reared up from the mattress, eyes wide and curiously blank. “s'zombie Thatcher!”

 

Malcolm raised an eyebrow.

 

“Is fuckin' comin'!”

 

“It's alright,” replied Malcolm. “Just aim for the fucking head, aye?”

 

“Aye,” said Jamie. “Aye aim fir th heid. Aim fir -”

 

And his head hit the mattress again.

 

Malcolm sighed. Love was a fucking weird thing but it was a fucking weird mistake he'd happily make again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are writer-food, have you fed your author today?
> 
> Also kind of out of ideas now. Feel free to prompt.


End file.
